The TINY things that IMPROVE golf courses MASSIVELY!
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47 Comments
Only thing you need is to keep people going quick. Should be able to get done in 3 hours with 18. Too many people take a million practice swings reading putts like it’s the masters. No one wants to wait behind you for a 5 hour round to see you shoot in the 90s hurry up ha
A lot of clubs members team up and sponsor holes to form a budget for each hole as far as the course goes itself. Maintenance on machines is spendy especially if crew members break equipment. Fert is very expensive right now, if you can get it. Money is the number one objective..and a crew. If the club has money then there should be no excuses unless they lack the crew for the demand
I made this suggestion to my club recently. Mow a walkway from the tee box to the fairway. That way you don't have to walk to taller grass which can make you more tired over time and looks a bit more professional.
Rick, will you build a golf course some day? 🙂
I played a country club in California, and they actually had tall tees in the carts. Absolutely LOVED it. Most players will bring their own tees so I'm guessing they only replaced the ones taken.
Just got done playing a new course today, conditions were as pure as ever, wonderful course.. however, they had zero water out on the course, and no one coming around in a cart for refreshments. When it's 89-91 degrees out, and no clouds, having no water at a course to me is unacceptable. Keep players hydrated!
Grass clippings and ball washers are the two biggest musts at a course. I'd rather play from the rough all day then swing through clippings. The lack of cart paths or at least a path that doesn't look like it was pelted with asteroids. Some courses here don't have a linear progression to the next hole. Gotta drive around or double back to move foreword.
One thing I like about Japanese courses are the wet towels to wipe down your shoes after you air blast your spikes. At every course the staff (in pit stop likeness) unloads your cart at the end of a round, wipes your clubs down and confirms you have none missing. They take care of every little thing and it makes it a pleasure to play here.
If it's a blind tee shot or a hole from where you can't see what's going on down the fairway, have a diagram on the tee marker. I'm not buying a course map at every different course I play, so without the diagram you're just hitting and hoping.
A few years ago there were a group of us played at Ferndown Golf club. It chucked it down with rain for a good hour so we were delayed. When we returned out to the course, the greenkeeping staff were syringing the rain water out of the cups on the greens. Classy.
Level Tee Boxes did it for me… Why are my heels tilting backwards on a tee box?…
This will probably be looked past, but I’m working with a group to help rehab our local golf course, and one of the things that we are seriously looking in to, is removing all bunkers on the course because of how expensive they are to rebuild and maintain. The current ones are extremely old and no drainage, the sand goes rock hard in no time, or filled with water. What’s the thoughts on courses with no sand bunkers, but instead grass bunkers, and tight cut fairways to slide off the greens?
Also remember that lots of golf courses have public footpaths or are on common land which can means courses get alot is thefts of items such as flags, rakes, benches, divot boxes, tee markers. It's a lost leader if those places have expensive items like I mentioned.
Aye this guy can't say "regularly".
Don't even try saying "purple burglar alarm"
My home course is maintained beautifully by the green keepers, played a later round today around 3:30–6:30. I actually could not believe the amount of fking non replaced divots and absolute plethora of pitch marks on the greens. Added at least 15-20 minutes to my round fixing dozens of deep pitch marks… golf etiquette definitely needs to be taught better. Couldn’t believe how badly the players treated the course and just left it to the keepers to deal with. Wouldn’t be surprised if my membership cost doubles for next year! Very sad.
I have ball cleaners at one of my local courses at most of the holes and they are always soapy.
Not only are tee boxes not level they're often not aligned to the fairways.
Rick being on his phone was all I could focus on
Nothing like old fibre glass flagsticks that give you 1000 invisible splinters if you slide your hand along it accidentally!
Obviously it's management's responsibility to hire enough people to do the job at hand. Greenkeepers do the best they can but they have to understand that most of these things would be easy to do if they had the proper budget and workforce. No need to point fingers at Rick for not knowing everything in details either. Great episode, interesting.
This is absolute gold. Such low hanging fruit to bring so much more value to the customer.
Water fountains
Yardages on sprinkler heads
Little bins for broken tees
Half way house!
Coming from a maintenance man… most of these things mentioned will take an hour minimum on their own. Lots of times there is just not that much time to work on such small things.
here are some of mine: 1) yardage #s on all sprinkler heads. how hard is it to send 2 people out for a few hours to shoot everything with laser and print out labels, once? 2) yardage books always make a course feel more swanky 3) maintenance staff should be out early and not bugging people in the middle of the day. if they do they should at least stop all activity when golfers are through 4) proper tee time spacing, should be obvious 5) a little box of small tees or tee scraps on par 3s tee boxes 6) good signage on course as though people have never played there before.
I will say that I cant stand when a courses driving range has turf mats to hit off of. The course I am a member at has turf mats and I almost never use the range simply because of that
At my home course it is not nice at all but what I hate the most is the tee boxes are so bad when I go to a different course I get excited if it’s a flat tee box, the ones at my home course are never flat and have humps in the middle so the ball is either above or below your feet
I caddy at course that a few years ago switched to rakes that have curled handles at end so ball can roll under the rake and less likely to effect the ball when entering or exiting the bunker. Course also has box with pencils, tees, ball markers, scorecards and tees on range, 1st tee and 10th tee.
I think clubs can only pick and choose from these suggestions. Taken as a whole they could prove to be quite expensive and time consuming. Plus, too many benches, ball washers and trash bins on every tee, signs everywhere….pretty soon there is too much man-made stuff you are looking at, which can detract from the natural beauty of the course. Spare, but functional please.
Have tee markers color clearly visible
When I have to walk up and make sure it’s the right tee makes me not happy
Have tees that arnt completely rotted and falling apart
I would like decent bunkers. Around my area the courses bunkers are hard with more gravel than sand, every bunkers is like a waste bunker. They're so bad I will either rake and place or just drop out of the bunker. Playing out of them just ruins your wedges, looks like you been hitting from the cart path. Why have them if they can't keep them maintained and in good shape?
The one thing that really pisses me off is holes that have a "wooly" edge. Should be able to have a putt die into the hole not be pushed away by a fluffy edge.
But the grass clippings naturally fertilize the fairways. Plus I can’t imagine the mass of clippings you’d be facing if you tried removing them.
Garbage bins cant be placed at some courses due to bears.
Level tee boxes and ball cleaners returning are huge for me.
A big thing for me is a well kempt practice green. Nothing worse than the practice green and greens on the course being different speeds and acting differently.
Rick what are you doing on your phone lol
i know this is old but for the love of god dont put weed killer on the greens it will kill them lol
One thing rakes needs to have is also a fork to hold the rakeso they dont block the ball trickling into bunkers etc. But also so people like me who has a bad back doesn't have to lean down to pick up the rake
For all the greenkeepers moaning and saying rick and guy dont know what they talking about !! Its YOUR JOB !!!
I worked for a couple years as a groundskeeper for a course here in Texas and all of these things, even the ones that seems hugely easy, are very time consuming. Even something as easy as changing towels and emptying trash can easily take an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size of the course, which granted doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re dealing with irrigation issues and need to mow before the day gets busy and a bunch of other major projects that have huge impacts on the course and are in many cases short handed, often severely, it makes doing the small things a lot harder. We actually did a lot of those little things, painted cups, trash and ball washers that were maintained well, but as someone who did it on a day after day basis, those things and cleaning the course of trash people just toss off the cart or blows out takes 3-4 hours to do it properly for one person covering all 18 holes. Little projects make a huge difference, but everyone adds up to not enough hours in the day at most places, so often decisions have to be made and often the things that get cut seem huge, but if you could be in the room for the discussion and know what the alternative was, often it’s a necessary evil brought on by intense understaffing and lack of funds
What pisses me off more than anything are bunkers that aren't turned. You land in one that's stiff/firm sand and the pin is forward and you really need to poof out the sand like an egg, but it's hard so you can't and have to hit to the far side of the green. Pros never ever have that problem. When this happens to me I pick up and take a 2 from there. I'm a really really great sand trap hitter.
Was at a course recently that had amazing cart girls. They of course had great drinks and snacks available, but also for sale little things like balls, tees (were free), ball markers, sun screen, towels.
A separate practice green just for chipping
I worked on a crew for 10 years, these guys don't see the whole picture. This is ALL about money.
Most of the time, your average course in your small town can't afford enough people, doesn't pay enough for the ones they do have. The Supt makes the most, he's responsible for keeping the greens good, which is the most important thing to the average golfer. He's usually always in a pissed off mood about lack of crew and equipment, which in turn hurts morale and causes yearly turnover. Most courses don't even have an assistant supt, they might have one in name only and he's not certified to spray chemicals……….Most equipment is old, needs constantly re-worked on, replacement parts are expensive, most courses don't even have a REAL mechanic to work on them. It's trial and error by the crew. You can't find sand or sod half the time, fuel is expensive, chemicals used on the greens and fairways are really OUTRAGEOUS to purchase now, if you can even get your usual order.
Unless your willing to pay $50+ green fees, or the course is owned by the city or a management firm and uses their resources, don't expect Augusta National.
Too many golfers get fitted to a swing fault
In the USA we have a lot of clubs that don't water tee boxes and it's like cement to put a tee in the ground. A lot of guys want foot scrapers on the ball washer. I like a club that has a water bucket and brush to clean your clubs after a round near the parking lot.